Ex-midwesterner, different coast. I did not enjoy growing up in the midwest.
I had a similar experience growing up: completely white town, minorities counted on one hand, zero african-americans. Not a single gay person to be found. Not until I attended college did I meet an african-american, or any non-native english speaker. Muslim? What's that? I was raised to believe african-americans, gays, and communists are bad, evil, flawed, un-welcome.
In junior high school, a friend invited me to attend a church social event near a river one night. Some of the guys put together a big, makeshift cross out of lumber they brought with them and planted it in the ground. We had a small bonfire going, and then they lit the cross. Several of the guys in the church put their Sunday robes on...then they pulled hoods over their faces. Yeah, KKK.
I knew a policeman who drove drunk all the time. I knew a teacher who bought high school students liquor many times. I knew a peer in high school sleeping with that teacher. I knew girls pregnant by 11th grade. I knew domestic violence that happened in my house, in my friends' homes, and in the homes of people I barely knew. In a small town, most of my friends and I experienced separated families through divorce.
My experience could be unique, or it could be quite common. At any rate, by the time I finished college, I needed to leave.
The midwest isn't all bad, but I saw some of the worst it has to offer.
Honestly, that speaks for the repressive force of the culture more than the lack of other minorities. A lack of ethnicity can be somewhat explained by a lack of historic migration. Homosexuality is everywhere.
What year was this? I grew up in a midwest town and when I was young, and there were no black residents, but by the time I left there was. There certainly were other minority racial groups as well as gays as lesbians.
I am also a former small town Midwesterner. In the 90s, A gay couple moved in a house on the same block where I lived. Even though my parents told me to stay away (like they did with all people we didn't know, even in our "demo"), I don't think it mattered much because we eventually started mowing their lawn. In a mid-size elementary school, I remember a chinese and a black (maybe mixed) family. Another mixed family moved in next door around 2002 (black part was Jamaican). I didn't have a problem with any of them, and neither did anyone else that I knew. By the time I left for college, there were plenty of Mexicans.
My dad worked in a prison, which meant he spent his day around thieves, drug addicts, gangsters, murderers, sexual predators, and the like. He gave fear of those kinds of people to the family, and suspected everyone of being one.
I grew up on a farm in Kansas outside of a town of 650 people. No minorities, 7 different christian churches.
One thing that stuck out, we had a gay tennis coach who everyone loved. Easy to hate the unknown, paint a picture of the other, hard to do when there is a friendly face as a counterpoint.
I've lived in both places and each one absolutely has it's bubble. But to say that rural America is a special case is wrong. I've met prolific travelers who have gone up and down each coast but who would never think of visiting the interior--something they are quite proud of. "Real America" is frequently the butt of jokes, and the people there are caricatured or casually dismissed as less important.
This is all really unfortunate. US politics won't evolve past a tug-of-war if the sides don't attempt to sincerely understand each other (and that is almost never the case). The worst part of this election for me was seeing how each side would immediately jump to the least generous interpretation of an ambiguous or unclear statement made by the other. Since language is rife with ambiguity, that virtually guarantees you see your opponent as consistently wrong, stupid, and evil. If that's what people want to see, that's what they'll see no matter the words. Bubble vision.
This mutual ignorance is greatly assisted by 'traitors' like the one who wrote this article. He trashes his kith and kin because it increases his status with the low information coastal bigots.
He could promote mutual understanding but he chose not to do so.
This is all so interesting and it really is solved with better tolerance. But how do you learn tolerance of something you've never seen or experienced?
The people who live in big cities don't visit the country either. They have never worked on a farm or in a factory. The output of these things just show up at their stores with no thought of the effort to put them there.
I know someone who is pretty racist against blacks... Until his son starting dating a woman with a black child, now not so much. People will always fear or blame those they don't know or understand regardless of whether it is white class rural, illegal immigrants, lgbt, or muslims. The problem is that most people aren't self aware enough to think about their place in the larger world, they only want to live their life and are get scared (and look for someone to blame) when they can't.
Agree. I happen to think that a lot of US domestic issues could be solved if Americans would accept the other side of "population-density" as equal before law.
For example: The acceptance of Gun Laws are directly correlated to density as density makes dense policing more affordable. How is it so complicated arguing about this, when all you'd need is accepting that different areas should be able to loosen/strengthen gun control, as the populace wishes?
How much of that inability to understand each other comes from the fact that media is usually produced in high density areas?
> each side would immediately jump to the least generous interpretation of an ambiguous or unclear statement made by the other
This is the frustrating part; there's no dialog, and no one's motivated to have one because it would deflate the polarization which props up the two party system.
The real bubble is the press. Their unsustainable model of patting themselves on the back and getting in bed with the politicians they're supposed to be shedding light on has them in a downward spiral. Case in point: the front page of the NY Times the day after the election.
The false narrative in tfa is another example of denial. How could Trump win unless everyone in the midwest is a racist homophobe?
The fact is, Hillary was such a poor candidate that even Trump was able to defeat her. Just accept it and move on. Accusing people in the midwest of being racists just makes you look like a fool. Take some constructive action like making sure the Democrat party has a less corrupt nominating process.
Hillary wasn't a poor candidate by herself, but because of a decades long slander campaign against her. The Democrats clearly underestimated how much people were willing to believe the baseless attacks against her. Nominating her was a display of unjustified trust in the voters' ability and willingness to see through the lies.
That too is part of the bubble. Or the two bubbles, perhaps. Completely different views of what reality is like. In one reality, Hillary is a crook, global warming a hoax, liberals evil, racism not an issue, and Trump a great business man and family man without any scandals. In the other bubble, it's the other way around.
Hillary was a poor candidate because she was a neo-liberal who had nothing to offer to the midwestern working class, and quite frankly took them for granted (she visited Wisconsin exactly zero times during the election, apparently she was too busy visiting The Hamptons and Martha's Vineyard).
It's funny that people are raging at the midwest because it's been, for the past few decades, quite blue. Hillary just assumed that they were With Her (even though she clearly wasn't With Them) and now they are at fault for not giving her the votes she felt she was owed.
Hillary was a poor candidate. She lost Michigan by 14,000 votes and she never even brought up that Obama and the democrats bailed out GM and Chrysler thereby saving many of their jobs and livelihoods. She was campaigning with lines like "when they say I'm playing the women card--I say deal me in!"
Meanwhile, Trump was saying things like "remember when the cars were made in Flint and you couldn't drink the water in Mexico? Now they make the cars in Mexico and you can't drink the water in flint."
Hillary failed to relate to voters. She lost the majority of women and working class, who should be the reliable democratic base. She was the image of robotic boredom and I voted for her. Tim Kaine was a waste of a VP spot and a snub to Bernie. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile made Hillary look completely untrustworthy. Hillary arrogantly expected Obama's coalition to fall in line behind her without offering them anything to rally behind other than again Trump, which clearly wasn't enough.
Democrats have to own this failure and ask themselves what they could have done better.
You are oversimplifing this. These people are pissed off at Washington and Wall Street and they believe Hillary would be more of Obamas business as usual. And guess what? The emails proved them right.
The DNC is full of incompetent hacks whom were arrogant enough to have allowed this to happen. She dismissed half the country as deplorable, visited Virginia and told the miners there she's shutting the coal plants down. Wore 15 thousand dollar pantsuits to events on poverty. Its not surprising that she lost its surprising that she got as many votes as she did.
In one case we got audio tapes, the other transcripts from wall street meetings. testimonies in media vs emails. Statement on rallies vs arms deals and handshakes.
What we got is mathematically 4 realities. Both slander campaigns could be more or less true, in which the two most hated candidates in the world was really poor candidates for the two biggest parties in the united states. Both slander campaigns could be wrong, in which the voters where tricked by two political parties which should have known better to not bet a political election on slander. The two remaining options that only one slander campaign is wrong, is really only believed within the bubbles. It is very unlikely that anyone will be converted who already aren't.
>people were willing to believe the baseless attacks against her
Some people read the damaging emails. Other people only read the emails about Hillary getting a creme brulee because that's what her talking points focused on.
There was a lot in there that was very damaging and she refused to address pretty much all of it.
> The fact is, Hillary was such a poor candidate that even Trump was able to defeat her. Just accept it and move on.
This is false. It has nothing to do with Hillary.
> The false narrative in tfa is another example of denial. How could Trump win unless everyone in the midwest is a racist homophobe?
The false narrative is that Trump was a strong candidate. On the contrary, I'm betting he knew exactly how to play the game. Democrats have always had a hard time getting a 3rd term. They've only done it twice since 1836. The so-called keys to the White House pointed to a Republican victory. Trump is a sales man, he knew that the average American voter doesn't want to listen to policy, but rather catchy phrases that are vague patriotic ("I like Ike"). He is a weak candidate who knew how to work the system for a win. He's now filling his cabinet with people who shouldn't be there (Ben Carson, Sarah Palin, Rudy Guiliani), because the reality is he doesn't care one bit about policy or being the president. In their desire for "change" voters have managed to elect a person who doesn't care about them and whose apathy is going to do a lot of harm.
It has everything to do with Hillary. Heck, I've listened 2 and half hours of podcast between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan explaining why people should vote for her despite all the horrors they told about her, how ambitious, self-centered, egomaniac, greedy, dishonest, demagogue she is. I'm not american, but they successfully convinced me that in any case, she wasn't any better.
> Hillary was such a poor candidate that even Trump was able to defeat her
Which is sad because she really truly is more qualified than he is, I think. But she's just so damn unlikeable.
It's not even about the emails or anything. She literally represents everything everyone (including many liberals[1]) wanted to change about The Man. The only thing she had going for her on an emotional personal level was that she's a woman and that having the first lady president would be cool.
Imho Sanders stood a better chance. At least he was [trying to?] giving hope to the same audience as Trump was.
I guess we'll see what happens next.
[1] Here I consider things like "alt hacker propaganda" a la Mr. Robot and movements like Occupy Wall Street as "liberals". Perhaps they're more libertarians, I don't know. But the zeitgeist amongst many young people has been extremely anti-establishment in recent years.
What you say is exactly what happened. If people wanted so much not to elect Trump, they could vote for Sanders, and I am somehow sure Sanders would won the presidential elections. And in my opinion, he would be best bet for America that is shaken by many things right now. Seeing wealthy, white people, from America (mostly artists and to some extent engineers), crying all over the internet how everything is doomed and unfair is making me nausea. Guess what?
My country was destroyed by provoked civil war and NATO bombing after that. (Bill Clinton played big part in that) After that we have chosen new government, everything was going to be better, new economy, new young smart people, then our prime minister (who was the bastion of those changes and reforms) got assassinated. And after that? After that we got same shitty government that was during the 90s (right/extremists, radical party), and now they "are" pro-EU oriented. So much bullshit, country elected the party that was the worst possible choice, that nobody from circles of my family, friends and people I know didn't even dare to think of as a leading party. And it happened. And guess what, you live with it! How? Well, country is people, not one man. Sure it is bad, it hurts, but you live your life following your own internal compass, not somebody else's.
People who voted for Trump do have to own his clearly racist, xenophobic and misogynist behaviour during the campaign.
But equally Hillary needed to have a answer for the real suffering that is happening amongst people who are being left behind by technological advancement and globalisation. And she didn't. And actually neither do the Democrats. And as we will soon learn neither do the Republicans.
"They had not seen the Apollo moon lander, nor George Washington’s Revolutionary War uniform. And they certainly have not seen the new National Museum of African American History and Culture."
This quote really hit home for me. I spent part of my childhood in rural Texas as a new immigrant to this country. My parents were poor, although not as poor as some around us, and what they lacked in money they more than made up for in love. For this I will be forever grateful.
I had a friend who would frequently have to come over for dinner because her mother was too strung out to pick up groceries. I had another friend who never owned a pair of shoes that fit properly until he enlisted in the Army.
I'm pretty certain both of my friends would have loved to see the Apollo capsule and the assorted museums in DC. They were however, a bit preoccupied in trying to get enough calories throughout the day to maintain a healthy weight.
It's been a while since I read something on the web that made me cry, the condescension displayed in this article has succeeded.
I think it's important to view this piece in the context of the recent election, where the median Trump supporter had a higher income than the median Clinton supporter.
Yes, rural poverty is a thing and we should provide compassion and assistance to everyone trying to escape it. But that's not the family described in the article (who clearly did have the resources to visit DC), and it's not what swung the election. Trump got the votes of a huge number of middle-class, older white people, who have had many opportunities to venture out of their bubbles, to get to know their country better, to reach out to immigrants and the vulnerable in their own communities, and have just never bothered.
We should hold ourselves to a higher standard, and work to empathize with the "cultural anxieties" driving rural Trump voters, just as they have never worked to understand the anxieties of their coastal/urban counterparts, let alone those of blacks, Muslims, and other persecuted minorities. But we shouldn't idolize them as "real America". They are a part of it, yes, but the real America is a much bigger, more diverse and welcoming place.
the median Trump supporter had a higher income than the median Clinton supporter.
This is exactly it. Small-town America is a very different beast from suburban America. Most small town residents tend to pride themselves on their self-sufficiency ... which is, of course, contingent upon being able to gas up and drive to the nearest "city" (max population: 40,000) a couple times a month for necessary provisions from the big box stores.
Lisa Ling[1] did a great piece where she interviewed people in the largest Radio-Free Quiet Zone[2]. The high-schoolers she talked to spent more time talking about how different (and better) they were from "city people", a fact they were quite proud of.
I agree with this, mostly. I feel that Trump's campaign has already damaged the country in a very profound way that will take years for us to recover from as a people. But, I don't see Trump suddenly being the adult in the room given how he ran his campaign. At the very least, the tone has made people talking to each other very difficult.
I know people keep turning to hard data to try to explain the election. I think that's generally the right way to look at it. However, I think we all know people who have supported Trump. I feel like we should be sharing what they're thinking respectfully, even though it's feels more than likely many of his supporters would not reciprocate, however true or not true that may be. More viewpoints is better after all, right? They perceive us as aloof and disconnected from their problems. So, what do we do?
I don't want another election like this more than anyone else does, but it will happen again if something doesn't change. I have little faith in the protests ability to change people's minds. The people they need to talk to likely have never even been to the streets they're protesting on. All they're going to hear is that the protests in Oregon were deemed a riot and dispersed, and that will be that.
Within my family, not all voted for Trump, but most did and they come from different economic strata. So, I've seen multiple viewpoints on this. I think in order for me to understand the elections, I've made a separation between: 1.) economics, and 2.) race & culture. The people I know that voted for Trump might have responded to the dog whistling (can it really be called that when it's so unsubtle?). But, in their minds it's about 1. and not 2. I think when it comes to changing hearts, the only thing that matters is how you feel, so it's important to make that distinction. They don't see themselves as fomenting racial anxiety, even though the United States is inevitably becoming a more diverse place. They only care about the economy, and Trump made a point of opposing trade pacts that have hollowed away their traditional place in American society.
At home and at work, I feel like I occupy two totally different worlds that don't interact with each other at all. I come to work, and it's nice. It's a diverse workplace, people are kind, we're making money. It's nice. Then I go home and it's like 2008 is rumbling on. It really does feel to me like people don't humanize people they disagree with anymore because they filter their world through cable news & the internet. Maybe changing that might help change this?
But how do we do talk to them? To them it sounds like we're waiting for them to die off, which is profoundly insulting to them but also not true of us, or at least not of me. We aren't waiting for them to die off. To me, or us, it sounds like they're trying to turn back the clock on the progress we've made for a lot of people who have endured a lot of hurt. But to them, they're trying desperately to preserve a way of life. But the world is just changing around them. We're all uncertain about where we're going to from here.
So how do we talk to them about it? How do we make them not feel threatened? I'm really at a loss. I think it's hard for the left (or at least me) to appreciate how divergent our understanding of what constitutes racist/sexist behavior is from theirs too. What's unacceptable behavior to me is locker room talk or just crude humor to them. It's hard for me to not lose my temper about it. I'm not sure how to shrink the empathy gap between the two sides, but I don't see these conversations taking place, so somebody has to start, right? But how do we do it?
I know this is a difficult pill to swallow because it involves entreating people who frighten or even mean ill to our friends (or ourselves). I happen to be in a position of extreme privilege so this post is a little too easy for me to write. Consulting with people I disagree with presents no threat to me. Others definitely will not have that experience. I don't mean to suggest that people who feel at risk should try it. But I feel like there's not a whole lot of options available to me right now. I don't want my country to tear itself apart in two or four years from now. I'm really at a loss here as to what's the best way forward for everyone, and for the country.
Really? You took a comment about people who lived next door to DC, where he lamented that they had no interest in visiting any of the cultural attractions available despite for them it being easy to do so, and decided to make that into a personal insult about poor families in Texas? That made you cry?
Yes, really. Taken in the broader context and tone of the article and the memories it brought back of my own childhood, I found it dismissive of the struggles many poor people face that might prevent them from partaking in such trips and being exposed to different cultures, particularly as children who have little say in the matter, even if in that particularly case it might have been easy for the author's relatives to do so.
Regarding my being moved to tears, I offer you my sincere apology, I'll certainly try and "man" up to keep my emotions from bothering you.
I'm tired of the idea that hicks and blue collar workers won the election for Trump. A majority of white male college graduate voters voted for Trump [0]. Clinton won less of the white female college graduate vote than Obama even after all of the Trump scandals.
My take is that, sadly, there are a lot of so-called "elites" that care more about their own self-interest than social issues. In other words, people hate paying any amount of taxes regardless of where the money goes. One of the "dog whistles" that the media didn't pick up on was trump signaling that "hey, I'm rich too, I will lower your taxes if you vote for me".
That being said, I am also sick of articles that say the Democratic party needs some reflection, introspection, etc. , It was an extremely close race. We did well but we didn't win. That is all.
You didn't do well. Doing well would have been getting 66+ million votes like Obama did in 2008 and 2012. Trump got fewer votes than either Romney or McCain, but still won because Clinton did too. Democrat numbers were down 10% over the last time around, in an era where a 5% margin of victory is considered gigantic. And all this while running against the most immoral, least qualified, and craziest candidate in living memory. If you think this qualifies as doing well, I really wonder what doing poorly would look like.
Clinton won the popular vote. I mean short of winning, what else qualifies? I don't subscribe to the idea that the party in an election who received over half the vote is somehow falling apart at the seams.
Pundits do this every time there is an election but in reality it's the swing of the pendulum. The parties and peoples feelings towards them evolve over time and power changes hands between the two parties. Does that mean you need to go cry in a corner and question your reality each time your party loses an election? No it does not.
You can be tired of it, but it's true. There was a 16% swing from Dem (last election) to Rep amongst people earning <$30k (mostly white). It was the largest demographic swing of any kind (race, gender, education, income) since the last election.
No campaign or party did well. If either were competent or wise, they would have won handily. This election was like Pat Buchanan running against Richard Nixon. I guess one of those two were bound to win if those are the options. Does that mean one side did well? Nope.
The Democratic Party hasn't been competitive in the house for 6 years, was only able to pick up 1 senate seat in a very unfriendly election, and now, they can't win the presidency. Republican governors outnumber democratic ones by nearly 2-1. Republican state houses outnumber democratic ones by over 2-1.
I'm sorry -- what was the part of the Democratic Party platform that's really speaking to America again?
"If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man accused of violating the Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent apartments to black people."
This sentence alone illustrates the very membrane at work that holds together the "intelligentia" bubble. Accusing the dummies of immorality while just employing more advanced tools for your deviseveness does make you the bigger bigot.
When your mind starts copy pasting headlines from the "accusational BS by trolls" folder to your personal "trusted facts" folder thats stupidity at work. But if the passing BS is just allowed if its coming from inside your echo chamber that doesn't make you more elevated. It just elevates your ignorance.
The mental copy pasting that you've done is: Saying Donald Trump is a straight up racist, while your "facts" are headlines, whose actual article's details like
"While there is no evidence that Mr. Trump personally set the rental policies at his father’s properties..."
to the degree that you haven't convinced these backwards types of their backwardness, then yes, you have failed to communicate the clearer view you have of the world from your mountaintop. studies of over-intelligent people repeatedly confirm how lonely they can feel in a world where stupid is normal. so what.
you had one job to do (I'm running away with the idea that this is a giant missive about the election results)
and you screwed it up.
you screwed it up by putting on an elitist face that says "we know whats best for you" when the voice speaking it was not a trusted voice nor a voice that actually DID have the concerns of those being spoken to at heart.
The premise of calling the electorate ignorant racist etc is belied by the 2 terms of Obama.
silly presumption. I contend that it was a referendum on elitist pols represented by one of the most unpopular faces in insider quid-pro-quo politics of the last 30 years.
Should have run Sanders, you rich privileged outta-touch bi-coastal self-hating Americans :D
see, you think you have rid yourself of the stench of redneck but your snarky gabby talkshow hosts, your fancy globetrotting cuisine, and your view of the world all belie this by reasserting what really stinks about us Americans:
know-it all, we do it better than anyone else, we have a solution for your backwards ass, heavy-handed, unilateralist, non-listeners who just want to tell people how to live or ideally force them into an uneasy compliance and dependency upon our cultural products.
Hollywood makes lame 1 dimensional propaganda films with the same basic plotline ad nauseam, our dot-com industry makes more mobile phone apps to keep people staring at their choice of hand-held status symbol, and we try to shove GMOs and overpriced pharmaceuticals in everyones face via one-sided trade agreements like TPP. We already are Donald Trump, collectively speaking. We ARE the ugly American so stop pretending that our embarrassment begins with G.W. Bush and ends with Trump. The world has been both in fear of our nuclear arsenal, and laughing at our foibles for decades now. Our polite presidents engender as much amusement as our cowboys, because behind the scenes its the same shitball of unilateralist global empire that should benefit our fat-sofa-asses back at home.
If you unplug the bubble it's this reality that should sink in to both the coasts AND the midwest.
Only then can we confront and tame our inner monster,
as so long as we pretend that our coasts and interior have nothing to do with one another, or that our "liberal" coasts are not also involved in the same "team america, world police" activities, that is basically a lie in service to no one.
We need to own our ugly rump side.
Pretending that our cousins are stupid and backwards while not seeing the oppression we are also part of creating (for example the PC culture of no-platforming, etc. completely goes against the actual principles of the left, of a fair and just society. we have allowed PC culture to hijack the stillborn tiny baby of our nearly non-existent left wing. any leftist movement that forgets labor is elitist and will die or be absorbed as another mask for fascism, which is what our PC culture has become- observe the Hill-bots treatment of Sanders and the creation of "Bernie Bros" as part of their strategy to kill any leftist movement within the DNC, thus handing the victory to Trump as the only populist on the list...)
yeah, if you guys would turn your lens inward that would be great. take a frikkin look in the mirror and then think about how you failed as a communicator.
I am an ugly american. I've started to become ok with it, as the village locals refer to me as "the American" I can joke about it with them in Portuguese...I grew up in the midwest, did 20 years in California and after over a decade of global travel for an odd line of work, find myself on a mountainside in rural Portugal where I realized that the local country folk have more sensible knowledge of how to live sustainably than most of the new-fangled "permaculture" folk who moved here to farm.
In the end, I realize that its our media and self-image that's doing the most damage- we are lying to ourselves about who our country is and what its history is.
Shame is not the desired end result, but a recognition of what has happened can allow for healing...
> And rather than embrace it, rural and white working-class Americans are twisting and turning, fighting it every step of the way. We will never return to the days where a white man could barely graduate high school and walk onto a factory floor at 18 and get a well-paying job for life. That hasn’t set in for much of the Midwest.
There's the problem and the bubble people are talking about. White men (or any sex and color really) that can barely finish high school aren't going away anytime soon and they still need jobs. Not everyone is capable of more academic work.
They need job skills and few high schools teach them. One of the high schools I went to had a small program with the community college next door for people to learn marketable skills instead of the usual electives. The other had nothing like it.
tl;dr Study beyond high school is not just liberal arts.
If outsourcing suddenly produced high quality issue free software for cheap tomorrow then we'd all be just as screwed despite having such great skills.
My high school was similar but that's all gone now. But this was 15 years ago and not finishing high school was still common. In fact I didn't and later learned programming through a trade school.
I'm pretty sure there are next to no opportunities for anyone following my path today though.
- I hear a lot from people that issues like gay rights didn't hit home until they became friends with (or realized that they were friends with) a gay person. Similarly with for example Muslims. This article hit home there.
- The point about jobs seems very spot on - jobs have been drying up throughout the Midwest, particularly steady/long-term low-education (i.e. manufacturing) jobs, and national leadership has not done anything to address it. The economic story of the last 8 years has been a recovery for the wealthy and financial sector only, so it's no wonder the rural midwest see no hope from the Democrats. It sounds like Trump's main plan for this is to create jobs for people that destroy the very environment they live in, which is tragic. Long term, I wonder what feasible plan could address the jobs issue besides a basic income, or massive government hiring for jobs like building infrastructure.
> The economic story of the last 8 years has been a recovery for the wealthy and financial sector only,
There’s a kernel of insight here, but as stated this is a grossly inaccurate summary.
On the whole the economy is doing radically better than it was during the recession in almost every way. I recommend diving into BLS data yourself if you’re curious about particular regions, industries, etc.
As a whole, sure, but real incomes have still been flat for the last 15 years so. The average American worker can feel that his or her standard of living is no longer increasing:
> as stated this is a grossly inaccurate summary. On the whole the economy is doing radically better than it was during the recession in almost every way.
Your assuming "the whole economy" is an accurate measurement of how citizens finances are doing. But those two things are often not related in any way.
In my "flyover-Midwest" community, the stronger the economy does, the worse off real people's lives are here. "The economy" rewards companies whose profits go up and expenses go down. But in much of flyover America, "expenses" represents real people's paychecks, and "profits" represent real peoples bills.
Good jobs rarely come here. These folks don't own stocks or bonds. Many don't have retirement plans. Whenever the economy improves, all that really means here is "someone I know got fired today" or "the price of something I buy just got jacked up".
Just one example: Google claims GM's stock price is at it's highest peak for the entire year. Two days ago, GM laid off 2,000 people in Michigan and Ohio. Wealthy citizens (or "coastal elites") got taken care of nicely, but "rural" Americans who actually work for GM just got yet-another kick to the teeth.
> I recommend diving into BLS data yourself if you’re curious about particular regions, industries, etc.
This is where a lot of the "out of touch liberal ivory tower" insults come from. Telling people who work two jobs and still can't afford rent or childcare that "your wrong, my census data proves your doing just fine" is the kind of tone deaf communication that makes people desperate enough to elect a "human Molotov cocktail".
If your a person who's been suffering for years, and the choices are "just me and my neighbors keep getting screwed" or "everybody in the whole nation gets screwed", a lot of people will take that second option. I don't defend that decision, and it's certainly not the vote I cast. But I'm not so out of touch with my neighbors as to pretend it's unfathomable that so many people chose that.
Here is one interesting plot: national employment-to-population ratio. Try plotting it from 1990 to 2016, it shows a significant drop in '08 which has not recovered very much since.
I'm thinking drones help maximize how much distance you can place between workers in some abstract way. Maybe there's a way to use all of our technology to make rural America more relevant. I know you could outsource call center stuff if broadband were more available.
Call centres are the next industry to go. 5-10 years max.
Machine/Deep Learning is rapidly improving beyond anyone's expectations and you only have to look at Microsoft's recent advancements in speech recognition that match humans to see the disruption in action.
Working in a call center is less rewarding than digging ditches. It's a crushing, soulless form of employment, and it will be a great thing for the world when machine learning or AI or Watson can handle all that tier 1-type support.
This is a bit besides the point, but my understanding is that a lot of the recovery has not been in high-skill jobs, but lower-skilled jobs. Especially in plaecs like Texas.
Though these jobs were not being generated in rural areas
Readit News
I had a similar experience growing up: completely white town, minorities counted on one hand, zero african-americans. Not a single gay person to be found. Not until I attended college did I meet an african-american, or any non-native english speaker. Muslim? What's that? I was raised to believe african-americans, gays, and communists are bad, evil, flawed, un-welcome.
In junior high school, a friend invited me to attend a church social event near a river one night. Some of the guys put together a big, makeshift cross out of lumber they brought with them and planted it in the ground. We had a small bonfire going, and then they lit the cross. Several of the guys in the church put their Sunday robes on...then they pulled hoods over their faces. Yeah, KKK.
I knew a policeman who drove drunk all the time. I knew a teacher who bought high school students liquor many times. I knew a peer in high school sleeping with that teacher. I knew girls pregnant by 11th grade. I knew domestic violence that happened in my house, in my friends' homes, and in the homes of people I barely knew. In a small town, most of my friends and I experienced separated families through divorce.
My experience could be unique, or it could be quite common. At any rate, by the time I finished college, I needed to leave.
The midwest isn't all bad, but I saw some of the worst it has to offer.
Honestly, that speaks for the repressive force of the culture more than the lack of other minorities. A lack of ethnicity can be somewhat explained by a lack of historic migration. Homosexuality is everywhere.
They were there; they're just still in hiding.
That was their point, if it wasn't obvious with the part about the KKK.
My dad worked in a prison, which meant he spent his day around thieves, drug addicts, gangsters, murderers, sexual predators, and the like. He gave fear of those kinds of people to the family, and suspected everyone of being one.
There are now smaller minority groups (mostly Mexican/Latino), but that's it. Very small community.
Well, I tried to make that clear...
One thing that stuck out, we had a gay tennis coach who everyone loved. Easy to hate the unknown, paint a picture of the other, hard to do when there is a friendly face as a counterpoint.
This is all really unfortunate. US politics won't evolve past a tug-of-war if the sides don't attempt to sincerely understand each other (and that is almost never the case). The worst part of this election for me was seeing how each side would immediately jump to the least generous interpretation of an ambiguous or unclear statement made by the other. Since language is rife with ambiguity, that virtually guarantees you see your opponent as consistently wrong, stupid, and evil. If that's what people want to see, that's what they'll see no matter the words. Bubble vision.
He could promote mutual understanding but he chose not to do so.
The people who live in big cities don't visit the country either. They have never worked on a farm or in a factory. The output of these things just show up at their stores with no thought of the effort to put them there.
I know someone who is pretty racist against blacks... Until his son starting dating a woman with a black child, now not so much. People will always fear or blame those they don't know or understand regardless of whether it is white class rural, illegal immigrants, lgbt, or muslims. The problem is that most people aren't self aware enough to think about their place in the larger world, they only want to live their life and are get scared (and look for someone to blame) when they can't.
For example: The acceptance of Gun Laws are directly correlated to density as density makes dense policing more affordable. How is it so complicated arguing about this, when all you'd need is accepting that different areas should be able to loosen/strengthen gun control, as the populace wishes?
How much of that inability to understand each other comes from the fact that media is usually produced in high density areas?
This is the frustrating part; there's no dialog, and no one's motivated to have one because it would deflate the polarization which props up the two party system.
The false narrative in tfa is another example of denial. How could Trump win unless everyone in the midwest is a racist homophobe?
The fact is, Hillary was such a poor candidate that even Trump was able to defeat her. Just accept it and move on. Accusing people in the midwest of being racists just makes you look like a fool. Take some constructive action like making sure the Democrat party has a less corrupt nominating process.
That too is part of the bubble. Or the two bubbles, perhaps. Completely different views of what reality is like. In one reality, Hillary is a crook, global warming a hoax, liberals evil, racism not an issue, and Trump a great business man and family man without any scandals. In the other bubble, it's the other way around.
It's funny that people are raging at the midwest because it's been, for the past few decades, quite blue. Hillary just assumed that they were With Her (even though she clearly wasn't With Them) and now they are at fault for not giving her the votes she felt she was owed.
Meanwhile, Trump was saying things like "remember when the cars were made in Flint and you couldn't drink the water in Mexico? Now they make the cars in Mexico and you can't drink the water in flint."
Hillary failed to relate to voters. She lost the majority of women and working class, who should be the reliable democratic base. She was the image of robotic boredom and I voted for her. Tim Kaine was a waste of a VP spot and a snub to Bernie. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile made Hillary look completely untrustworthy. Hillary arrogantly expected Obama's coalition to fall in line behind her without offering them anything to rally behind other than again Trump, which clearly wasn't enough.
Democrats have to own this failure and ask themselves what they could have done better.
http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/8/hillary-clinton...
The DNC is full of incompetent hacks whom were arrogant enough to have allowed this to happen. She dismissed half the country as deplorable, visited Virginia and told the miners there she's shutting the coal plants down. Wore 15 thousand dollar pantsuits to events on poverty. Its not surprising that she lost its surprising that she got as many votes as she did.
What we got is mathematically 4 realities. Both slander campaigns could be more or less true, in which the two most hated candidates in the world was really poor candidates for the two biggest parties in the united states. Both slander campaigns could be wrong, in which the voters where tricked by two political parties which should have known better to not bet a political election on slander. The two remaining options that only one slander campaign is wrong, is really only believed within the bubbles. It is very unlikely that anyone will be converted who already aren't.
Some people read the damaging emails. Other people only read the emails about Hillary getting a creme brulee because that's what her talking points focused on.
There was a lot in there that was very damaging and she refused to address pretty much all of it.
She's been trying to be the Democratic nominee for decades, there was a reason she lost every time until now...and her opponent was openly socialist.
This is false. It has nothing to do with Hillary.
> The false narrative in tfa is another example of denial. How could Trump win unless everyone in the midwest is a racist homophobe?
The false narrative is that Trump was a strong candidate. On the contrary, I'm betting he knew exactly how to play the game. Democrats have always had a hard time getting a 3rd term. They've only done it twice since 1836. The so-called keys to the White House pointed to a Republican victory. Trump is a sales man, he knew that the average American voter doesn't want to listen to policy, but rather catchy phrases that are vague patriotic ("I like Ike"). He is a weak candidate who knew how to work the system for a win. He's now filling his cabinet with people who shouldn't be there (Ben Carson, Sarah Palin, Rudy Guiliani), because the reality is he doesn't care one bit about policy or being the president. In their desire for "change" voters have managed to elect a person who doesn't care about them and whose apathy is going to do a lot of harm.
Which is sad because she really truly is more qualified than he is, I think. But she's just so damn unlikeable.
It's not even about the emails or anything. She literally represents everything everyone (including many liberals[1]) wanted to change about The Man. The only thing she had going for her on an emotional personal level was that she's a woman and that having the first lady president would be cool.
Imho Sanders stood a better chance. At least he was [trying to?] giving hope to the same audience as Trump was.
I guess we'll see what happens next.
[1] Here I consider things like "alt hacker propaganda" a la Mr. Robot and movements like Occupy Wall Street as "liberals". Perhaps they're more libertarians, I don't know. But the zeitgeist amongst many young people has been extremely anti-establishment in recent years.
My country was destroyed by provoked civil war and NATO bombing after that. (Bill Clinton played big part in that) After that we have chosen new government, everything was going to be better, new economy, new young smart people, then our prime minister (who was the bastion of those changes and reforms) got assassinated. And after that? After that we got same shitty government that was during the 90s (right/extremists, radical party), and now they "are" pro-EU oriented. So much bullshit, country elected the party that was the worst possible choice, that nobody from circles of my family, friends and people I know didn't even dare to think of as a leading party. And it happened. And guess what, you live with it! How? Well, country is people, not one man. Sure it is bad, it hurts, but you live your life following your own internal compass, not somebody else's.
People were rabid to vote against trump. Not so much to vote for Hillary. Turnout sucked.
Compare it to rabid Trump supporters, or Obama.
People who voted for Trump do have to own his clearly racist, xenophobic and misogynist behaviour during the campaign.
But equally Hillary needed to have a answer for the real suffering that is happening amongst people who are being left behind by technological advancement and globalisation. And she didn't. And actually neither do the Democrats. And as we will soon learn neither do the Republicans.
Not always
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Balance_fallacy
This quote really hit home for me. I spent part of my childhood in rural Texas as a new immigrant to this country. My parents were poor, although not as poor as some around us, and what they lacked in money they more than made up for in love. For this I will be forever grateful.
I had a friend who would frequently have to come over for dinner because her mother was too strung out to pick up groceries. I had another friend who never owned a pair of shoes that fit properly until he enlisted in the Army.
I'm pretty certain both of my friends would have loved to see the Apollo capsule and the assorted museums in DC. They were however, a bit preoccupied in trying to get enough calories throughout the day to maintain a healthy weight.
It's been a while since I read something on the web that made me cry, the condescension displayed in this article has succeeded.
Yes, rural poverty is a thing and we should provide compassion and assistance to everyone trying to escape it. But that's not the family described in the article (who clearly did have the resources to visit DC), and it's not what swung the election. Trump got the votes of a huge number of middle-class, older white people, who have had many opportunities to venture out of their bubbles, to get to know their country better, to reach out to immigrants and the vulnerable in their own communities, and have just never bothered.
We should hold ourselves to a higher standard, and work to empathize with the "cultural anxieties" driving rural Trump voters, just as they have never worked to understand the anxieties of their coastal/urban counterparts, let alone those of blacks, Muslims, and other persecuted minorities. But we shouldn't idolize them as "real America". They are a part of it, yes, but the real America is a much bigger, more diverse and welcoming place.
This is exactly it. Small-town America is a very different beast from suburban America. Most small town residents tend to pride themselves on their self-sufficiency ... which is, of course, contingent upon being able to gas up and drive to the nearest "city" (max population: 40,000) a couple times a month for necessary provisions from the big box stores.
Lisa Ling[1] did a great piece where she interviewed people in the largest Radio-Free Quiet Zone[2]. The high-schoolers she talked to spent more time talking about how different (and better) they were from "city people", a fact they were quite proud of.
.. _1: http://www.cnn.com/shows/this-is-life-with-lisa-ling
.. _2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Radio_Q...
I know people keep turning to hard data to try to explain the election. I think that's generally the right way to look at it. However, I think we all know people who have supported Trump. I feel like we should be sharing what they're thinking respectfully, even though it's feels more than likely many of his supporters would not reciprocate, however true or not true that may be. More viewpoints is better after all, right? They perceive us as aloof and disconnected from their problems. So, what do we do?
I don't want another election like this more than anyone else does, but it will happen again if something doesn't change. I have little faith in the protests ability to change people's minds. The people they need to talk to likely have never even been to the streets they're protesting on. All they're going to hear is that the protests in Oregon were deemed a riot and dispersed, and that will be that.
Within my family, not all voted for Trump, but most did and they come from different economic strata. So, I've seen multiple viewpoints on this. I think in order for me to understand the elections, I've made a separation between: 1.) economics, and 2.) race & culture. The people I know that voted for Trump might have responded to the dog whistling (can it really be called that when it's so unsubtle?). But, in their minds it's about 1. and not 2. I think when it comes to changing hearts, the only thing that matters is how you feel, so it's important to make that distinction. They don't see themselves as fomenting racial anxiety, even though the United States is inevitably becoming a more diverse place. They only care about the economy, and Trump made a point of opposing trade pacts that have hollowed away their traditional place in American society.
At home and at work, I feel like I occupy two totally different worlds that don't interact with each other at all. I come to work, and it's nice. It's a diverse workplace, people are kind, we're making money. It's nice. Then I go home and it's like 2008 is rumbling on. It really does feel to me like people don't humanize people they disagree with anymore because they filter their world through cable news & the internet. Maybe changing that might help change this?
But how do we do talk to them? To them it sounds like we're waiting for them to die off, which is profoundly insulting to them but also not true of us, or at least not of me. We aren't waiting for them to die off. To me, or us, it sounds like they're trying to turn back the clock on the progress we've made for a lot of people who have endured a lot of hurt. But to them, they're trying desperately to preserve a way of life. But the world is just changing around them. We're all uncertain about where we're going to from here.
So how do we talk to them about it? How do we make them not feel threatened? I'm really at a loss. I think it's hard for the left (or at least me) to appreciate how divergent our understanding of what constitutes racist/sexist behavior is from theirs too. What's unacceptable behavior to me is locker room talk or just crude humor to them. It's hard for me to not lose my temper about it. I'm not sure how to shrink the empathy gap between the two sides, but I don't see these conversations taking place, so somebody has to start, right? But how do we do it?
I know this is a difficult pill to swallow because it involves entreating people who frighten or even mean ill to our friends (or ourselves). I happen to be in a position of extreme privilege so this post is a little too easy for me to write. Consulting with people I disagree with presents no threat to me. Others definitely will not have that experience. I don't mean to suggest that people who feel at risk should try it. But I feel like there's not a whole lot of options available to me right now. I don't want my country to tear itself apart in two or four years from now. I'm really at a loss here as to what's the best way forward for everyone, and for the country.
Regarding my being moved to tears, I offer you my sincere apology, I'll certainly try and "man" up to keep my emotions from bothering you.
My take is that, sadly, there are a lot of so-called "elites" that care more about their own self-interest than social issues. In other words, people hate paying any amount of taxes regardless of where the money goes. One of the "dog whistles" that the media didn't pick up on was trump signaling that "hey, I'm rich too, I will lower your taxes if you vote for me".
That being said, I am also sick of articles that say the Democratic party needs some reflection, introspection, etc. , It was an extremely close race. We did well but we didn't win. That is all.
[0] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/clinton-couldnt-win-over...
Pundits do this every time there is an election but in reality it's the swing of the pendulum. The parties and peoples feelings towards them evolve over time and power changes hands between the two parties. Does that mean you need to go cry in a corner and question your reality each time your party loses an election? No it does not.
Except the article you link to confirms it - he won the White men non-college demographic 72 to 23.
The article is talking about how (on a whole) the white demographic also voted for Trump, just not as much as the white uneducated demographic.
https://twitter.com/bengoldacre/status/796356106952048644
No campaign or party did well. If either were competent or wise, they would have won handily. This election was like Pat Buchanan running against Richard Nixon. I guess one of those two were bound to win if those are the options. Does that mean one side did well? Nope.
I'm sorry -- what was the part of the Democratic Party platform that's really speaking to America again?
Dead Comment
This sentence alone illustrates the very membrane at work that holds together the "intelligentia" bubble. Accusing the dummies of immorality while just employing more advanced tools for your deviseveness does make you the bigger bigot.
When your mind starts copy pasting headlines from the "accusational BS by trolls" folder to your personal "trusted facts" folder thats stupidity at work. But if the passing BS is just allowed if its coming from inside your echo chamber that doesn't make you more elevated. It just elevates your ignorance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/us/politics/donald-trump-h...
But I guess believing in "facts" means I am part of some out of touch intelligentsia.
The mental copy pasting that you've done is: Saying Donald Trump is a straight up racist, while your "facts" are headlines, whose actual article's details like
"While there is no evidence that Mr. Trump personally set the rental policies at his father’s properties..."
fails to make it into your conscience.
you had one job to do (I'm running away with the idea that this is a giant missive about the election results) and you screwed it up. you screwed it up by putting on an elitist face that says "we know whats best for you" when the voice speaking it was not a trusted voice nor a voice that actually DID have the concerns of those being spoken to at heart.
The premise of calling the electorate ignorant racist etc is belied by the 2 terms of Obama. silly presumption. I contend that it was a referendum on elitist pols represented by one of the most unpopular faces in insider quid-pro-quo politics of the last 30 years.
Should have run Sanders, you rich privileged outta-touch bi-coastal self-hating Americans :D
see, you think you have rid yourself of the stench of redneck but your snarky gabby talkshow hosts, your fancy globetrotting cuisine, and your view of the world all belie this by reasserting what really stinks about us Americans:
know-it all, we do it better than anyone else, we have a solution for your backwards ass, heavy-handed, unilateralist, non-listeners who just want to tell people how to live or ideally force them into an uneasy compliance and dependency upon our cultural products. Hollywood makes lame 1 dimensional propaganda films with the same basic plotline ad nauseam, our dot-com industry makes more mobile phone apps to keep people staring at their choice of hand-held status symbol, and we try to shove GMOs and overpriced pharmaceuticals in everyones face via one-sided trade agreements like TPP. We already are Donald Trump, collectively speaking. We ARE the ugly American so stop pretending that our embarrassment begins with G.W. Bush and ends with Trump. The world has been both in fear of our nuclear arsenal, and laughing at our foibles for decades now. Our polite presidents engender as much amusement as our cowboys, because behind the scenes its the same shitball of unilateralist global empire that should benefit our fat-sofa-asses back at home. If you unplug the bubble it's this reality that should sink in to both the coasts AND the midwest. Only then can we confront and tame our inner monster, as so long as we pretend that our coasts and interior have nothing to do with one another, or that our "liberal" coasts are not also involved in the same "team america, world police" activities, that is basically a lie in service to no one. We need to own our ugly rump side. Pretending that our cousins are stupid and backwards while not seeing the oppression we are also part of creating (for example the PC culture of no-platforming, etc. completely goes against the actual principles of the left, of a fair and just society. we have allowed PC culture to hijack the stillborn tiny baby of our nearly non-existent left wing. any leftist movement that forgets labor is elitist and will die or be absorbed as another mask for fascism, which is what our PC culture has become- observe the Hill-bots treatment of Sanders and the creation of "Bernie Bros" as part of their strategy to kill any leftist movement within the DNC, thus handing the victory to Trump as the only populist on the list...)
yeah, if you guys would turn your lens inward that would be great. take a frikkin look in the mirror and then think about how you failed as a communicator.
I am an ugly american. I've started to become ok with it, as the village locals refer to me as "the American" I can joke about it with them in Portuguese...I grew up in the midwest, did 20 years in California and after over a decade of global travel for an odd line of work, find myself on a mountainside in rural Portugal where I realized that the local country folk have more sensible knowledge of how to live sustainably than most of the new-fangled "permaculture" folk who moved here to farm.
In the end, I realize that its our media and self-image that's doing the most damage- we are lying to ourselves about who our country is and what its history is. Shame is not the desired end result, but a recognition of what has happened can allow for healing...
There's the problem and the bubble people are talking about. White men (or any sex and color really) that can barely finish high school aren't going away anytime soon and they still need jobs. Not everyone is capable of more academic work.
tl;dr Study beyond high school is not just liberal arts.
It's not their fault.
If outsourcing suddenly produced high quality issue free software for cheap tomorrow then we'd all be just as screwed despite having such great skills.
I'm pretty sure there are next to no opportunities for anyone following my path today though.
- The point about jobs seems very spot on - jobs have been drying up throughout the Midwest, particularly steady/long-term low-education (i.e. manufacturing) jobs, and national leadership has not done anything to address it. The economic story of the last 8 years has been a recovery for the wealthy and financial sector only, so it's no wonder the rural midwest see no hope from the Democrats. It sounds like Trump's main plan for this is to create jobs for people that destroy the very environment they live in, which is tragic. Long term, I wonder what feasible plan could address the jobs issue besides a basic income, or massive government hiring for jobs like building infrastructure.
There’s a kernel of insight here, but as stated this is a grossly inaccurate summary.
On the whole the economy is doing radically better than it was during the recession in almost every way. I recommend diving into BLS data yourself if you’re curious about particular regions, industries, etc.
http://www.multpl.com/us-average-real-income
Your assuming "the whole economy" is an accurate measurement of how citizens finances are doing. But those two things are often not related in any way.
In my "flyover-Midwest" community, the stronger the economy does, the worse off real people's lives are here. "The economy" rewards companies whose profits go up and expenses go down. But in much of flyover America, "expenses" represents real people's paychecks, and "profits" represent real peoples bills.
Good jobs rarely come here. These folks don't own stocks or bonds. Many don't have retirement plans. Whenever the economy improves, all that really means here is "someone I know got fired today" or "the price of something I buy just got jacked up".
Just one example: Google claims GM's stock price is at it's highest peak for the entire year. Two days ago, GM laid off 2,000 people in Michigan and Ohio. Wealthy citizens (or "coastal elites") got taken care of nicely, but "rural" Americans who actually work for GM just got yet-another kick to the teeth.
> I recommend diving into BLS data yourself if you’re curious about particular regions, industries, etc.
This is where a lot of the "out of touch liberal ivory tower" insults come from. Telling people who work two jobs and still can't afford rent or childcare that "your wrong, my census data proves your doing just fine" is the kind of tone deaf communication that makes people desperate enough to elect a "human Molotov cocktail".
If your a person who's been suffering for years, and the choices are "just me and my neighbors keep getting screwed" or "everybody in the whole nation gets screwed", a lot of people will take that second option. I don't defend that decision, and it's certainly not the vote I cast. But I'm not so out of touch with my neighbors as to pretend it's unfathomable that so many people chose that.
Here is one interesting plot: national employment-to-population ratio. Try plotting it from 1990 to 2016, it shows a significant drop in '08 which has not recovered very much since.
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000
Machine/Deep Learning is rapidly improving beyond anyone's expectations and you only have to look at Microsoft's recent advancements in speech recognition that match humans to see the disruption in action.
Though these jobs were not being generated in rural areas